Home The hieroglyphics of Medjai-Tattoos: explanation for reading them

Hieroglyphics are sign with certain phones, for example an "m", but they also can mean a whole word like "building". They also can determine, what is meant with the rest of the letters, for example a person: the word "reading" would be with a figure-hieroglyphic the word "reader".
For the Medjai hieroglyphoic tattoos I used the Gardiner list in which hieroglyphics were classified systematically. In this list, the hieroglyphics were classified in groups. One group gets one letter, and the particular signs in the group are numbered. One example: The owl can be found in the group "birds", this is the list "G". The owl is No. 17 in that list, so the owl gets the determination "G17" in der Gardiner list. With the help of this abstract international system one can use the Old Egyptian online dictionaries easily. I have used this dictionary:
http://aaew.bbaw.de, that is the one of the Berlin-Brandenburg-Academy of Science (BBAW). Here one can put in the Gardiner terms as well as German words. The data material is based on inscriptions, Papyri - old Egyptian data material. You cannot find anything which was not written by the Old Egyptians. The hieroglyphics shown in the small white pictures for explaining the Medjai tattoos are from that dictionary. The Gardiner listings (using German terms) you can find under www.hieroglyphen.net but I think you can find them easily for English language if you surf the internet.